


When Rosie Forgot

by Upstarsfromreality



Series: Rosie's Knowledge [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-10-26 06:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20737361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upstarsfromreality/pseuds/Upstarsfromreality





	1. The call

Sherlock looked at his ringing phone in surprise. Rosie never called; she only texted. They both liked it better that way, even though John sometimes complained about not hearing their voices. "We live in the same flat, Dad," Rosie had scoffed, "You can hear our voices inside of it." "Only when you're home," John had told the sixteen-year-old.

"Hi Rosie, what's going on?" Sherlock asked his daughter on the phone.

It wasn't his daughter who answered, but one of her friends - not Sara, whose flat she was staying at, but the one with the high-pitched voice who was also staying over with Sara and had the retro 80's name, Jennifer or Stephanie.

"Oh thank God you answered, Mr. Holmes," said Jennifer-or-Stephanie. "It took a few minutes to find Rosie's phone, and then Dr. Watson wouldn't answer even when we called three times." 

Sherlock's vision tunneled. Rosie was in trouble, badly enough that her friends were seeking parental intervention either against her will or without her assistance. Worse, it was a medical problem, the kind he, Sherlock, was least equipped to deal with. That was the only explanation for her friend's repeated calling of John instead of reaching out to Sherlock at the first failure.

When Sherlock's awareness caught up with his mouth, he realized that he was in the middle of saying, "No, he never has his phone on when he's in a meeting - " Sherlock caught himself and changed to "on a Thursday night - " just in time. He and John were generally open about their histories with addiction, but they understood that teenagers do not want their friends to know anything about their parents, and respected Rosie's desire for privacy in that regard. "What's the matter with Rosie?" he asked, heart in his mouth.

"She had a seizure," said Jennifer-or-Stephanie. "We think it's alcohol poisoning."

Alcohol poisoning. The words pushed him into the Mind Palace, but Sherlock knew it was time to stay on the surface, gather data, it wasn't time to hide and think yet, no matter how much he wanted to. He had to interview the witness.

"Have you called 999 yet? Is Rosie breathing?" he demanded.

"Yes, Sara called them. Yes, she's breathing."

Breathing. Breathing is good. It's the least boring thing he's ever heard. "Is the ambulance there yet?"

"No, the 999 staff told Sara it would be ten minutes and that had to be at least five minutes ago."

Sherlock calculated quickly. At this time of night the Tube was almost always quicker than waiting for an Uber. "I'm going to walk over to the Tube station now, but I'll stay on the street so I don't lose signal," he told Jennifer-or-Stephanie. "When the paramedics tell you what hospital they're taking her to, call me back and I'll head right over once I know what direction to go."

"Yes, Mr. Holmes," said Jennifer-or-Stephanie.

"And, Jennifer," said Sherlock, hoping he had it right. "Thank you. Sara too. You girls may have saved her life tonight."

Twelve minutes later, Jennifer called back and told him Rosie was being taken to King's. Sherlock got on the tube. He had texted John twice, but the meeting would not end for another fifteen minutes.


	2. The Vigil

Sherlock walked up to the King's A&E desk, gave his name and Rosie's name, and was informed by a bored clerk (two cats, smoker, trying to cut down) that someone would be out to update him shortly. He sat down in the industrially-upholstered chair, wondering how it could possibly be more uncomfortable than a rank mattress in a drugs den or a backwards chair with someone whipping his back.

Five minutes later, a cheerful woman came out and identified herself as Dr Leeds. "Sherlock Holmes?" she asks, "we have you listed as father to our patient Rosamund Watson?"

Sherlock was initially discouraged by her hesitation but then realized it had nothing to do with Rosie's state of health. His own name was no longer instantly recognizable throughout London. The girls would have told the paramedics something like "She has two dads and one of them's a doctor." With neither the clue of gender nor his own name to tell her which he was, Dr. Leeds didn't know whether to speak English or medicine. Sherlock put her out of her misery to save time. "That's right. My husband, John Watson, is a GP. He's on his way. I have as much medical terminology as your average physician's spouse. How's she doing?"

"She's had two seizures, both quickly resolved, probably due to hypoglycemia - low blood sugar. That's very common with alcohol poisoning. We're giving her glucose intravenously and her level is coming up well. We've also given her medication to prevent another seizure and are preventing stimulation, which can also bring one on. She's conscious, but not very responsive. Her alcohol concentration is coming down now - it can rise for up to forty minutes after the last drink, you understand - and we expect her become more alert over the next few hours. She's intubated now, to protect her airway if she vomits before she's able to prevent choking."

Sherlock digested this, and then asked the only question that matters. "May I see her?"

Dr. Leeds smiled. "Yes, briefly, but to avoid stimulation and seizure risk we will leave the lights dim and I ask that you don't speak above a whisper." 

Sherlock walked into Rosie's A&E bay and took her hand. "Rosie," he whispered, "I am so sorry you felt like you had to do this. We will fix it." He kissed her forehead and tiptoed out.

A minute later, John arrived. They wrapped each other in a high and John let him know, "I saw her doc charting at the desk and got the update. You got a chance to see her?"

"Just for a minute, yeah,"

"Then I'll wait a few minutes before my turn, keep the stimulation down," said John. He turned to look more closely at Sherlock. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock opened his mouth, intending to say, "I'm fine," shut it, opened it again, and said, "I keep wondering where she got it."

"So go investigate," said John.

"What?" asked Sherlock.

"Division of labor. They're not letting both of us in to see her at once anyway. I've got more experience with this kind of vigil than you. It will be very helpful to know where she got it before we confront her about this - and we are going to have to confront her about this - so we know what to forbid. I'll sit in the chair and harass the nurses for information they don't have. You go out and hassle the witnesses."

Sherlock looked at the husband who had just absolved him from remaining in the hospital, or even admitting how much he hated to do so. He nodded, hugged John one more time, and left.


	3. The Witness Interview

Sherlock took the Tube over to Sara's. He felt slightly guilty about leaving John to watch Rosie alone, but his words rang true. John did have more experience watching someone wake up in hospital after an OD, largely because John's own drinking had been more the into-a-rage than the into-a-stupor variety. He didn't know the addresses of all Rosie's friends, but he had been to Sara's last week to help deliver some supplies for the massive project the girls were working on for school.

Sherlock rang the doorbell and put on his best interviewing a helpful witness face, which he'd worked at improving over the years. Sara had rung 999, after all. It wouldn't help to scare her. He looked into the face of the girl who had saved \the life of the most important person in his life. "Hello, Sara, I'm Sherlock, Rosie's papa. Thank you for calling the ambulance for her. She's doing better but not able to talk yet. Her dad and I would like to know a little bit more about what happened. Would you be willing to tell me?"

"You work with the police, don't you?" Asked Sara.

Sherlock knew better than to lie to an adolescent during an interview. You might get away with it once, but they would never tell you anything again. "I used to work with them a great deal. I mostly take private cases now, but I still occasionally consult for the police, yes. Does that make a difference?"

Sara looked back towards the house where her parents presumably were and stepped outside rather than inviting Sherlock in. "Rosie bought that whiskey. So, yeah, it makes a difference."

"You mean because buying it was an offense. That's true, but I can tell you two things. First, selling it to her was a worse offense. Second, Rosie could have died tonight, if you hadn't called the ambulance. You saved her life tonight. Would you be willing to help catch the guy who put her in danger?"

Sara nodded.

Sherlock looked at her closely and asked his first question: "How do you know she bought it?"

"She said she was going to. We had shared with her before, and she had promised to make it up to us."

A thin, middle-aged man came out on to guests, tying his dressing how, "Sara, who's this?"

"Hi Dad, this is Mr Holmes, Rosie's dad. He was asking me about what happened tonight."

"Then why on earth didn't you ask him in? Mr. Holmes, I am so sorry your daughter was in danger like that under my roof. My wife and I had gone to sleep, but you know teenagers have weird sleep schedules. We could have been keeping an eye out."

"It's not your fault, Mr.."

"Sorry, didn't Sara say? Russel, Bob Russel. Come on in out of the cold and sit down."

Sherlock sat down in an armchair to continue his interrogation, desperately hoping Sara wouldn't clam up in the presence of a parent. "Sara, you said that Rosie told you she was going to buy the whiskey to make up for not sharing before. What did she mean by that?"

Sara hesitated. "You know that she and Jennifer and I were all working on a project for literature in school, right? And that we'd work together on it for a few hours and spend the night at whichever house we were at?" Sherlock nodded. "Well Jennifer and I had been sneaking whiskey and sharing it when we finished work. Just a shot each for the three of us, out of our parents' bottles, and we'd usually have it in a big glass of water, because don't like the taste. It was to relax us."

"If you don't like the taste," interrupted Bob Russel "why didn't you have beer or wine? I know you tried to cover for you friend before by saying you'd all been drinking all along, but that doesn't even make sense."

"Because they were sneaking it," said Sherlock, "small drinks taken from large bottles - most likely you wouldn't even notice, and if any given parent did notice, they would just think their partner had drunk it. Beer comes in single-serving containers, so it's more likely to be missed, and wine would be worst of all - it's paired with food, so people buy it planning to drink it with a specific meal, when it would definitely be missed."

Sara nodded."Well, Rosie felt funny about not having any to share when we were at your house, even though we told her it didn't matter. After all, we were only doing it to relax and she could - and did - give us backrubs instead. We knew there wasn't any in the house because you're Muslim or Mormon or whatever you are - even though Rosie doesn't where a head covering or dress extra conservative when she's not in her school uniform."

To Hell with privacy, thought Sherlock, it just left room for imagination. "I'm a recovering addict and John's a recovering alcoholic. It usually doesn't involve a dress code for one's offspring. So Rosie brought the whiskey because she couldn't sneak any from us?"

"Yeah, a whole big bottle. She had it in her backpack and had the receipt with her. After we got through our work on the project, we poured out shots, if glasses like usual, but Rosie didn't put any water in hers. Jennifer and told her not to drink it like that."

"What did she say?"

Sara swallowed. "She looked right at me, then at Jennifer. She said, 'You're drinking to relax. I'm drinking to forget.' And she started drinking. And she didn't stop."

Sherlock's heart clenched. "Did she say what she wanted to forget?" Sara shook her head. "Had she seemed sad or depressed lately?" Sara shook her head again.

Knowing he's not going to get anywhere discussing his daughter's emotional state with her friend, Sherlock, switched back to facts. "You said she had a receipt from the off license where she bought the whiskey. Did you see where it was?"

"No, and that doesn't even mean she bought it there. Some of the creeps who buy for kids will push the receipt on the customer, so it doesn't look like there was a buyer involved."

"Well, do you still have the receipt?"

"No," said Sara, "it's in the bin. The outside bin, I mean. It's wet. She was sick, before she had the seizure."

"Ok, Sara, I have just one more question. Do you think Rosie did this on purpose? Do you think she wanted to drink enough to hurt herself?"

Sara looked at him carefully. "Yeah," she finally said, "I think she wanted to drink enough to do more than that."

Sherlock thanked Sara for her time, assured her that Rosie would be all right, and thanked Mr. Russel for his hospitality. He headed for the Tube back to King's, but not before sending John a text: "We need to talk."


	4. The Follow Up

Sherlock arrived back at King's to find John smiling. "They've been able to reduce the anti-seizure meds, and she's handling normal stimulation well. She's asleep now, but when she wakes up, they're going to try reducing the sedation, so they can take her off the breathing tube."

Sherlock smiled, but only halfway. Good news just made his own news harder to give. John saw it, of course. "Sherlock, what is it?"

Sherlock swallowed twice. "I talked to Sara Russel. She seemed to think this might have been a suicide attempt."

"Seemed to think?"

"Yeah, she said she thought Rosie wanted to do a lot more than hurt herself. But she also wouldn't admit that Rosie seemed sad or depressed."

John pursed his lips. "Surely that's not uncommon, for an adolescent who doesn't want to get her friend in trouble?"

Sherlock shook his head "The other way around is more usual. They know adults can be talked around feelings but can't ignore actions."

"So we've got to assume that Sara truly was frightened, although it's still possible her fears were ungrounded."

"Possible, yes, but, John, I saw something else on my way out of the house."

John caught Sherlock's hesitation. "Sherlock, what did you see?"

Sherlock sighed. "I saw what the project they've been working on is. It's fairly intense literary analysis. The book is A Tale of Two Cities."

"Self-sacrifice," said John.

"Yeah," said Sherlock, "our other family stumbling block. Do we bring it up when we talk to her? And when do we do that?"

"Yes," said John, "a few days after we get her home. There's plenty of time."


	5. The confrontation

Rosie had been home three days and her group had presented their project. Sherlock asked John to to take the afternoon off from the surgery and he agreed. They both knew that the time for big the conversation had come.

Sherlock silently rehearsed his lines. As natural as he would like to be when speaking with his own daughter, he still found it useful to prepare for something like this. 

When Rosie walked up the stairs, both John and Sherlock tensed up in their chairs. She walked in and looked at them. "Hi Papa. Is there a reason you're not experimenting on something and Daddy's home? Hi Daddy."

Sherlock sighed and tried to smile. "Yes, Rosie, we wanted to talk about Thursday night."

Rosie sat down on the couch and sighed herself. "There's not much to talk about," was all she said.

Sherlock looked over at John. In his experience, John was neither very good at discussing his addiction nor very tolerant when Sherlock did not want to discuss his own. He had no idea how John would react their daughter's reticence.

John just shook his head. "Why don't we start with why reading A Tale of Two Cities made you think about your mum until you were suicidal and move on from there."

Rosie flinched but didn't deny the intentional overdose. "It's not just her, you know. You went to war to save a country and got shot to save a soldier you didn't even know. Papa jumped off a building to save you and my mum jumped in front of a bullet to save him. Everyone in my family buys into that bollocks and I didn't want to read it."

Sherlock looked at her carefully, not wanting to push her over the edge. It wasn't every case where he gets to play the good cop, but Rosie wasn't every witness. "One option might have been to tell somebody that," he said quietly.

"Tell who?" asked Rosie. "It's not like I can tell my group, sorry, I'm not going to work on the project because the book makes me sad. The book makes everyone sad. That's why Dickens wrote it - that and to get paid, of course. Same goes for the teacher."

"You could have told one of us," John insisted. "We could have talked about it. Talked about why you think it's bollocks."

"I think it's bollocks because it is bollocks. People don't owe other people their actual lives. When they try to pay with them, they're spending what they don't even have, because there's always someone else who needs you to have your life… Oh shit. That was the point of this conversation, wasn't it?"

"Part of it, yeah," Sherlock admits. "I was so scared we'd lost you."

"Me too, sweetie," says John "Promise me you'll talk to us if you ever feel like that again." 

Rosie nods tearfully and reaches out for a hug, which they give. When all three of them have stopped crying for a bit, Sherlock gets them back on track. "We've got another promise to ask of you - that you'll go see a therapist you daddy has lined up." Rosie nods again. It seems like her "bollocks" speech has taken all the opposition out of her, at least for a while.

After a few deep breaths, John moves on to the next topic. "Rosie, love," he asks, "Do you remember when you were ten, and you found the bottles in the bin?"

Sherlock knows to John, and they both silently pull their sobriety chips out of their pockets. Rosie nods, looks at each of them. Sherlock can see that she has seen the chips, acknowledged the years of effort they represent. 

"Rosie, you know that substance abuse runs in families. Our family, unfortunately, is one of them."

"So half my genes are a little drunk. I'll get by." Rosie was apparently back into full teenager mode.

"Three quarters of your background, young lady," snapped John, "Or have you forgotten that there's nature and nurture. So three quarters that we know of. And the genetic component on my side is not "a little drunk" There's me. There's your aunt Harriet, who sobered up before I did but was a drunk earlier, too. And there was your grandfather, our dad, who remained a drunk until the day he drove into a tree and killed himself."

Sherlock took over. "Your daddy and I have both been sober for a long time, but that doesn't mean that you haven't grown up raised by addicts. That kind of patterns in a parent's thinking have an influence on a child's behavior. You're not in any position to be able to muck about with this and get away with it. I'm sorry, because some people are and it's not fair, but you're just not."

Rosie nodded, but her curiosity was caught by something John had said earlier. "Three quarters that we know of?" 

"Yeah," said Sherlock. "I couldn't trace any of your mum's family, and neither could your uncle Mycroft. That means she was very, very good at protecting them, but unfortunately it also means that we know nothing of your genetic history on that side. It's possible her parents or siblings were alcoholics or addicts and we just don't know."

"How possible?"

"About one in ten adults is an alcoholic," said John, "Since we don't know anything specific about her family, we can only use averages for your mum's people."

"So we have one more promise to ask, Rosie. Please go to the substance abuse screening we set up for you. Do what they recommend," begged Sherlock.

Rosie nodded one more time. She had behaved as if she had forgotten her entire family history. She would not forget again.


End file.
